Speech
by favefangirl
Summary: It's the night before his wedding and Eric needs to think up a speech to impress city councilor and Abnegation leader-and his step-father-to-be-Andrew Prior. And Fast. During his struggle Eric begins to remenice over his time with his fiance, Tris. Rated M for lemany stuff-not much but it is mentioned-and bad language. read and enjoy my fellow Divergent fans-or just read, whatever.
1. Chapter 1

**Diclaimer i do not own any of the characters of the rights to the book because they belong to her majesty Veronica Roth, because trust me, if this book was mine it would be crap but Tris would live so, silver lining and all that! Okay so dont be offended by the Tris/Eric i just think nit is and interesting ship and wanted to explore it, however, Fourtris-along with Bellarke-is my OTP so, yeah!**

I look down at the piece of paper in my hands and give a sigh of content. Finally, the wedding was planned! All I had to do was show up! The rest was down to my beautiful fiancé!

I look up at Max, my best man, and smile, "I'm all done! I can finally focus on this year's initiate class!" I explain, excited to finally focus on something I know anything about.

Don't get me wrong, planning the wedding myself was-as well as stupid-a brave, noble, gentlemanly thing to do! Only, when I accepted the role, I didn't realise I needed to get the dress, the shoes, the jewellery-only the best for my bride-the suits-yeah, suits-the bridesmaids dresses, the venue, the photographer, the transport, the guest list and everything else! The moral of this story, my gentleman friends, is that it's safer to let your significant other sort out the wedding.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Max asks me grinning.

I look down at my list and all the 'ticks' marking my completion of each task. Tick after tick after tick, and I can't find a single job left undone!

I look up at him, puzzled.

"Your speech!" He exclaims pointing to the one thing I have left to do. _Shit!_

Being the nice guy I am-don't laugh-I agreed we'd have an abnegation style wedding! I wanted to impress Tris' father and prove I'm good enough for her-though I'm really not-because he didn't take to me immediately. And I don't think he'd be up for a wedding on a moving train-Max's idea which I must say, is far better than the little church thing I've got planned-so we decided Abnegation was the way to go!

Dauntless find weddings to be a way of claiming another person, taking them and not letting go. For us it isn't just an expression of how much we love the person we are agreeing to spend the rest of our lives with, it's a vow that we will continue to be brave not just for ourselves but for the person we are marrying! Normally the vows are said somewhere private-intimate-and then the celebrations begin, lots and lots of celebration! Nobody cares what anyone wears-so long as they wear something-just that there is plenty of booze and single, lonely women. Simple, easy and exactly what Tris and I wanted.

Then her father came along and told us there was no way he'd be attending if that's how our celebrations would be. I could tell that Tris was distraught at the idea that her father wouldn't be the one to give her away and so I asked him what he wanted for her. As it turns out he wanted the boring, church wedding that the Dauntless crack up at! Desperate for his blessing I agreed that would be how our wedding played out and he reluctantly agreed to attend.

Which brings us to the now, to me staring at my to-do list and wondering why I waited until two days before my wedding to write the most important speech of my life!

"C'mon Eric, don't tell me you forgot the speech!" Max says exasperatedly.

I don't blame him, really! Now I'll have to either write the speech drunk or hungover, either way the stag was tonight-turning the train into our moving party. No girls of course, I am a faithful man and the others will surely find someone to aim their attentions at when we return-and the wedding was the day after tomorrow!

"Shit! Shit, shit, shit!" I repeat aloud. _Shit._

"How do I write a speech?" I ask Max, desperate. I _need _a speech in order to impress Tris' dad! I know she denies it, but her dad's approval of her spouse would mean a lot to her!

"Haven't you ever written a speech before?" Max asks, humoured by my need.

"No. You write my speeches, remember?" I remind him. The last two years he has written my scare-the-initiates shitless speech, and it has worked well! Only I have now have no idea how to write one myself. _Shit!_

"Well this one's on you, man! I can't write something for Tris, she's a mystery as far as I'm concerned!" Max explains turning away from me, "Train leaves in two hours, if you're on it or not! Worry about the speech tomorrow, tonight we party!" He leaves, closing my office door behind him. Easy for him to say, he doesn't have to write something good enough to impress Mr Speeches himself, Andrew Prior! _Shit!_

I arrive at the flat I share with Tris only ten minutes after Max left. All the way here the only thought I could fathom was, _shit, I'm officially screwed!_

I try the handle and find the door open. Tris must be home already. Her job as leader in training, the one she beat Peter to-after some convincing from Christina-normally has her working late. Not tonight though, tonight is her hen party!

"Honey, I'm home!" I call jokingly as I enter our small apartment and close the door behind me.

"Hey." Tris calls from the bathroom.

Our apartment isn't too big, we decided we'd get an appropriately sized apartment when we moved in together. Our front door is in one corner, touching the wall that we share with our neighbours, a girl called Marlene-one of Tris' initiation friends-and her boyfriend/father of her kid, Pansy, Uriah. Directly across from that is the door that leads to our small kitchenette. At the furthest end of the room are two doors, the one on the right to our bathroom and the one on the left to our bedroom, and in the space in between we have a couch, coffee table, a projector and bookcase.

"Rough day?" She asks stepping out of the bathroom in her pyjamas, ready for the pamper-party the hens are having.

"No, work was fine. What wasn't fine was realising that I need to write my speech!" I say grinning falsely. She pulls a face-empathising with me-before kissing me fully on the lips. "How about you?"

"Well," She begins sitting on our couch, pulling me with her. We land as a tangle of limbs but that doesn't matter. This closeness doesn't scare her anymore, "The leader who's supposed to be training me was away most of the day adding the finishing touches to my fiancés stag party, so I got _no _work done. Chris came to my office at one to get the keys to this place, to pack a bag for tomorrow, and found a stack of magazines that are now being sent to the factionless for them to…_enjoy_ instead. Since they weren't yours were they, Eric?" Tris continued smiling with false innocence at the end.

Magazines? Magazines? _Magazines_!

"Tris, look, I swear they were joke gifts from max when I first became a leader! Honestly, I haven't even opened them!" I plead. I want her, I love her! I don't need any perverted magazines!

"I know, they were still in the cellophane when she found them. I just wanted to see if you'd own up to it!" She explains. We do this a lot actually, randomly testing each other's bravery and honesty.

"Anything else happen?" I ask, eager to carry on hearing her voice. It's honey to me, smooth and silky.

"I had a really good slice of cake at lunch! Where were you then, by the way, I wanted to sit with you!" She says.

"I've gotten a bit behind with the wedding and all, I've been working through my lunch break a lot." I say casually.

"You should've said! I would've helped you with the wedding some more!" She reasons-always so reasonable! "Anyway, I have a pamper-party to set up and you my gorgeous fiancé have a stag party!" she says standing up and starting towards the kitchenette.

I grab her hand and spin her around to face me. I sit up staright and press three kisses into her collarbone-one for each bird-befre moving my lips to hers.

"I love you." I whisper onto her lips.

She pulls away and kisses me on the cheek before whispering back, "I love you more."

She walks back to the kitchenette and I let her. Most guys would watch the way her hips move, or how her ass sways-both things are rather big turns on, that's for sure-but instead I watch her hands. They are open, meaning she is relaxed. I can always tell a lot about her moods from her hands.

I sigh before getting up and moving toward the bathroom. I need to shower. In two days I will be married and happy, truly happy, for once in my life. Max was right-I'll worry about the speech tomorrow, tonight I'll party.


	2. Chapter 2

**Special thanks to XBubblegumBunnyX and Kitten100 for following the story. I'm assuming it's because they liked the last chapter, so I hope I dont dissapoint them with this one! Okay, enjoy!**

I thoroughly enjoyed my Stag-party, and judging by the mess in the lounge, the hen was a success as well. It's nice to be in my own bed with my beautiful fiancé again.

We lay on our sides facing each other, but she drifted to sleep at least half an hour ago, and I have one arm draped over her waist. I do this so I can keep hold of her, because if I let go that might be it. I might wake up tomorrow in my old bed to find out that all this was a dream. But no dream could possibly be this perfect, could it?

As I lay next to her, some of Tris' many words of wisdom come back to me. When I first told about the speech-weeks ago, I know-she told me to tell stories of our time together, so when I fall asleep I immediately dream of the first time I saw her!

3

I stand on the ledge listening out for the train. I soon hear it's wheels scraping against the track and watch as one by one the initiates-mostly in black to start with-come hurtling off the train at incredible speed. One, a girl, jumps and looks like she's going to make it.

Until she doesn't. I hear a scream and then silence. I say a silent prayer for her and then turn back to watch the remaining initiates try their luck at the leap of death.

I do however change my stance from passive to alert when I see the final two jump. They are both female. One wears black and white-Candor-Dauntless transfers are fairly common- but her friend, or whoever she is, wears grey. Abnegation grey.

She stands up and actually _laughs. _She just jumped from a moving train onto a _really_ tall building-something some people lost their lives doing-and she _laughs._

_Shit_, I think, _another one!_

Unsurprisingly she moves over to where the girl fell and looks sympathetically at the crowd gathered. However there is something else in her ocean-blue eyes, fear? No, hatred? No, it is an emotion I know so little about, she feels relief. Relief she survived, relief that she is free from the Abnegation. Just relief.

She moves away from the edge of the rooftop where the dead girl lays somewhere below and pulls her sleeve up to examine whatever damage landing did to her elbow.

_Smart. She needs to take care of herself before anyone else, especially here._

"Oh scandalous! A stiff's flashing some skin!" A Candor initiate says teasingly. This immediately gets under my skin. Why? No idea. Maybe it's the thought that this guy seems amused by the spectacle. A girl just died and another is checking for injuries and he finds it humouring.

_Idiot. He'll last a while, but he won't be popular. Like me, too lethal for love._

I so hope that the stiff is stronger than she seems, so that at some point during her time here, she wipes that smug look right off his face.

Why do I hope that? No idea, again. She's nothing to me! She's just some stiff. But the look in her blue eyes tells me that she is most definitely not just a stiff!

I nod at max before making my way back into the compound using a different route. I go unseen. I need to make arrangments for the dead girl's funeral.

Next time I see the initiates is after I've made the funeral arrangements. I open both doors to the cafeteria-a dramatic entrance is most memorable- and scan my eyes across the room. All I hear is my heartbeat and the sound of my shoes on the floor as I walk. I see the new stiff muttering with the old stiff-irony-and the girl she jumped with.

She fascinates me. The stiff, I mean. The first member she decides to make conversation with is a fellow Abnegation-Dauntless transfer! Irony doesn't even begin to describe this.

I make my way over to their table and sit down abruptly. The conversation re-starts and I already know they-the initiates-will remember me now.

"Well, aren't you going to introduce me?" I say to four-the old stiff-eventually, nodding to Candor and the new stiff.

Four replies almost immediately with, "This is Tris"-he points to the stiff-"and Christina."-he now points to the Candor.

_Tris…_

"Ooh a stiff." I say mockingly. "We'll see how long you last." I finish, not looking away from her small frame.

She has a small face with blue eyes that are far too big for it. She has a petite body which is very under-developed for a sixteen year old (not that I'm looking anywhere inappropriate).

I tap my finger on the table as I ponder what to say to her next. When I think of nothing I turn to four and say, "What have you been doing lately, Four?"

He shrugs in reply. He never was a big talker, even when we were imitates together. I look past him again to Tris, whose eyes haven't left me since I sat down. It could have something to do with my more-metal-than-skin face, or it could be something else. It's probably my piercings though.

I have two over my left eyebrow and three over my right. My lip is pierced and I have two balls under my bottom lip. I have my nose pierced and I have a horseshoe through my nose. I have both my ears done-one has a hoop in, forming a hole in my ear. And the other has a button ear-ring in it.

"why'd you transfer stiff?" I hear myself say before I can close my mouth. Luckily I said 'stiff' rather than Tris. I can't seem in any way attached to any of the initiates-they need to be intimidated, tested, pushed to the brink of giving up. They don't need me to be their new best friend.

She considers my question for a minute before answering with, "The food sucked."

Christina and an Erudite transfer-who sits across from us-begin to snicker and even Four smirks a little. Tris' expression is never changing. I narrow my eyes on her and she visibly gulps, "Careful Stiff." I say before rising to my feet-my eyes staying on hers-and clap Four roughly on the shoulder. I then turn and walk away.

So, the Stiff has promise. There's hope for her yet. She just needs to learn when to shut her mouth.


End file.
